Project Veritas' most recent exposé on Monday releases "never before seen images" of a detention facility in Donna, Texas. The images appear to show illegal immigrants on the floor in cells wrapped in space blankets.
Founder of Project Veritas, James O'Keefe, reports that there are eight pods with eight cells in each facility and that "at any given moment, there is an average of 3000 people in custody inside the detention center." He says that the photos were taken by an insider within the last few days. According to O'Keefe, there are 600 unaccompanied juvenile males, ages 7-17, in the cells separated by age and physical size. O'Keefe also reports that 50 of the individuals were Covid positive at the time of his report. There have been "multiple sexual assaults" as well as "regular assaults and medical emergencies," according to O'Keefe.
During a press conference on March 17, reporters challenged Press Secretary Jen Psaki on press access to the border's detention facilities. Psaki said that the administration "remains committed to doing that" but to date has not allowed the press to see the facilities. Senator Cruz (R-TX) wrote a letter to President Biden on March 22, pushing the current administration for transparency concerning the border crisis. The questions from the reporters begin at the time stamp 11:54.
The Border Report wrote in early February that agents were preparing two facilities to house juveniles ages 14-17 beginning on Feb. 24. One facility is in Carrizo Springs, Texas and the other is in Donna, Texas, as reported by Project Veritas. According to the report, the Donna facility is housed on 45-acres "and will serve as the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector processing center while the sector’s Centralized Processing Center in McAllen is renovated." It is a 160,000-square-foot tent facility.
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) announced its plans for the facility on Feb. 9. According to the CBP, the facility is "weatherproof, climate-controlled, and is expected to provide ample areas for eating, sleeping, and personal hygiene" and was erected in anticipation of the increase in border encounters due to the pandemic and natural disasters in the region. Photos of the facility with accompanying video were released in February by the CBP. Examples of the photos are shown below:
Donna TX Facility/CBP/Feb. 9, 2021
Photos provided to the Border Report by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-TX) office on Monday morning show migrants packed into the facility. The facilities "have long been nicknamed las hieleras, or “the freezers,” because ever since migrants began surging the border into South Texas in 2014, facilities like these have traditionally been kept extremely cold inside." Cuellar voted in favor of the two immigration bills recently passed by the House. One of the photos provided by Cuellar's office can be found below.
Donna Texas Border Facility/courtesy photo U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar
On March 18, the House approved two bills "that would grant amnesty to more than 5 million illegal aliens. The bills would also add millions of more, mostly low-skilled, foreign workers while millions of Americans remain jobless as a result of the pandemic," according to NumbersUSA. The American Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 1603) were both passed in the previous congress.
Also, according to NumbersUSA:
"The American Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) would grant amnesty to approximately 2.9 million illegal aliens who claim to have entered the country at the age of 18 or younger and meet other requirements. It would also grant an amnesty to approximately 320,000 illegal aliens who received Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 1603) would grant amnesty to more than 1 million alien farmworkers and their family members. Just as troubling, it would also replace the existing agriculture guest worker program with a new one that amounts to what can only be described as indentured servitude. Farmers would be able to sponsor guest workers, and if they work a certain number of hours over a set period of time, workers may receive a green card."
In February alone, NumbersUSA reports that Customs and Border Control Protection agents "apprehended 96,974 illegal border crossers...the largest number of apprehensions since the border surge of 2019 when Border Patrol agents apprehended 99,273 and 132,856 in April and May, respectively."
Graph/Border Encounters/Numbers USA
The CBP chart below compares numbers of unaccompanied alien children in 2020 with 2021 year-to-date. California's increase is not as high because the state has better border control than Texas.
Statistics/Unaccompanied Alien Children Crossing Border in TX and CA/CBP
As reported by UncoverDC in early March, poorly regulated immigration policy can have a devastating effect on the American worker. It can also imperil the safety of American citizens due to potential increases in drug and human trafficking. The Biden administration has big plans to reform immigration policy, as reported in a Feb. 18 UncoverDC article.
On ABC News "This Week," Martha Raddatz interviewed Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about his visit to the border on March 19, challenging him on the crisis at the border. Four Senators accompanied him on the trip. In the March 21 interview, Raddatz pointed out that he was briefed by "career professionals at DHS during the transition" and yet "was not prepared" for what is "now on pace to be one of the largest increases in migration in 20 years." Raddatz's questions implicated that telling people "not to come," as Mayorkas said in a March 1 press conference, isn't enough to deter migration. Mayorkas told Raddatz that the entire system was "dismantled in its entirety" by the Trump administration. He added that it will take time to implement his plan.
Rob Portman (R-OH), who accompanied Mayorkas on the trip, advocates reinstituting some of the Trump administration policies to discourage unsafe migration to the U.S. border. He also recommends that the media be allowed to access and photograph the conditions in the border facilities. He spoke on Face the Nation about his visit on Sunday.
Mexico announced on Monday that "several top U.S. advisers on border and immigration issues will meet with Mexican officials on Tuesday to discuss migration and development in Central America," due to the surge of migrants on the border between Mexico and the U.S. Mexico has placed limits on "all but essential travel" on its shared border with Guatemala and Belize to help stem the surge of migrants.
